Why there was no case to answer in Aston’s latest F1 copycat saga

The Spanish Grand Prix is traditionally a race where the first major updates of the season are seen and this year, although no longer the first European race, every team except Haas brought some development to their cars. What caught most people’s attention, though, were the changes made to the Aston Martin – which many felt bore more than a passing resemblance to the Red Bull as raced from the beginning of the season.

It’s perhaps unfortunate the Silverstone-based team drew such focus having already been subject to intense scrutiny in 2020, after producing what many dubbed ‘The Pink Mercedes’, a clever replica of the successful 2019 works Mercedes car. But this time was very different in many ways.

The 2020 Racing Point RP20 – which enraged other teams by its close resemblance to the Mercedes W10 of the previous year was, in essence, entirely legal. True the team was ultimately fined and had points deducted for copying a relatively minor area of the Mercedes brake ducts, but this was trivial in the overall scheme of things. What this did lead to was a close examination of what the regulations meant and what they actually said – not always the same thing.

What makes F1 different to other professional single-seater formulae is that the competitor must be a constructor, and for many years this was defined by ensuring the intellectual property of major parts of the car was generated and owned by the competitor. This was achieved by ensuring that certain ‘Listed Parts’, and the knowledge behind them, was not shared between teams.

There was, however, nothing to stop a team using advanced inspection techniques to examine a competitor’s car and reproduce it themselves. This is what Racing Point did and it led to a change in the rules prohibiting techniques such as scanning and photogrammetry, or indeed any digital techniques, to reproduce those elements of a competitor’s car which were now termed ‘Listed Team Components’ and carefully defined in the technical regulations.

Racing Point's 'Pink Mercedes' caused a stir in F1 in 2020

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

A further significant change was brought in for 2022. The new generation of Formula 1 cars required a root and branch revision of the regulations governing the bodywork and aerodynamics. Over  many years, Article 3 of the regulations, which governs this area, grew to a point where it became unwieldy and was out of step with the computer-based design techniques that teams had employed for decades. The opportunity was taken to bring this section of the rules up to date by defining various volumes within which aerodynamic surfaces had to lie.

For some time, teams have been required to lodge information with the FIA at the beginning of the season to demonstrate compliance with the rules – but the change to the modern regulation of bodywork meant that teams now had to present CAD models to the FIA, which were checked against the regulations by the FIA’s team of scrutineers. This also allowed checks to be made at the circuit by advanced scanning techniques, rather than the old-fashioned physical measurements of the past.

The FIA has the right to investigate the provenance of any design and this it did. Due to the long lead times involved, the updated Aston Martin radiator design was lodged with the supplier well before the Red Bull RB18 was seen

So, if direct copying of competitor cars was no longer allowed, and bodywork surfaces had to be checked by the FIA, how did the two cars end up looking similar and how did the FIA determine that no regulations had been broken?

To answer the first part of the question one needs to understand the complexities of design integration required of a modern F1 car. Every millimetre of every component is analysed to give maximum performance, and this generally means to allow the best possible aerodynamic efficiency. This leads, for example, to very compact suspension designs, the kinematics of which can dismay the vehicle dynamics team. It also means a starting point for the design is the cooling system.

The current power units are incredibly efficient, but also extremely powerful and this means that a great deal of heat has to be rejected to the water and oil radiators as well as the charge air coolers and coolers for the gearbox, hydraulics and hybrid electrical systems. The heat exchanger layouts therefore become a starting point for car architecture.

A closer look at the Aston Martin AMR22

An important factor in aerodynamics is getting high-energy clean air to the rear of the car, and this led to the highly undercut sidepod designs that were common prior to 2022. This year, there have been two schools of thought: The first is to retain the undercut by keeping the radiators high in the sidepod and laying them at a shallow angle.

The alternative, perhaps shown in the extreme by Williams, is to mount the radiators at a much steeper angle, keeping the sidepod wider but shorter and relying on a downwashing flow from the top of the sidepod to energise the surfaces at the rear of the car. Aston Martin investigated both but started the season with the former before switching to the alternative philosophy for the Spanish GP.

The FIA has the right to investigate the provenance of any design and this it did. Due to the long lead times involved, the updated Aston Martin radiator design was lodged with the supplier well before the Red Bull RB18 was seen in public – and before the much talked-about transfer of personnel took place. This left no case to answer.

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While this might explain the basic layout of the sidepods, some may question the similarity of details of the floor edge. While these aren’t intrinsic to the design, once similar design philosophies have been adopted it would be foolish not to look at how a similar and successful car was treating these areas. Providing no direct copying took place, it is acceptable to investigate similar designs and this is undoubtably what Aston Martin did. That Aston’s designers/engineers arrived at similar conclusions is not surprising. The same laws of physics apply in both Milton Keynes and Silverstone.

Despite striking similarities, Aston Martin had no case to answer over copying Red Bull

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images